this is from the book i've been working on for years now. it may change again. s


shooters

there are three of us
at the end of the bar
my nose is itchy
from the scratchy smell of
the cheap whisky you two are pounding down
but then, who am i to pass judgment?
me, with painted nails and a glossy paint smile that
i can actually see grinning
in two pairs of glassy eyes,
wide with fake honesty red with booze and smoke as
you both tell tales of vietnam

vietnaaaahhhhhmmm, in slurred pittsburgese
"back in nahhhhhhmmmm, yadda, yadda...!"

there are three of us
one with an invisible icepick between her eyebrows
and a long dead lover, forever nineteen, me
sipping at my watered down kahalua and cream that's
curdling in my belly
but not sick enough or pissed off enough yet,
no, not not quite yet to tell
these drunken middleaged bullshit artists that
i've got their number that i've just about had it, that
i KNOW they were never outside of the freaking southside, EVER
that their often mentioned purple hearts are about as real as
my fake nails, just there to impress

there are three of us
at the end of the bar at the end of the night
two have drunken hardons and one of us
me, well i've finally lost my painted smile
and i swear, i have dirt under my manicured nails
from staying here listening to this crap as
two of the three of us do shooters of cheap booze and
are shitfaced enough to think i'm still smiling.